nas at Yoacomoco, excels, in any element of
philanthropy or in any trait of nobleness, the treaty of Oglethorpe with
the tribes of the Muscogees, under the "four pine-trees" on the bluff of
Yamacraw.

RISE OF METHODISM

PREACHING OF THE WESLEYS AND OF WHITEFIELD

A.D. 1738

WILLIAM E.H. LECKY

Next to the founders of the world's great religions, the principal
figures in religious history are the leaders of its new movements,
the founders of sects or denominations. In this subordinate class
few names outrank that of John Wesley, while those of his brother,
Charles, and George Whitefield, their eloquent colleague, are
inseparably associated with that of the great founder of Methodism,
one of the most striking of the epochal religious movements of
modern times.

Although not intending to break with the Anglican Church, Wesley and
his followers were carried out upon independent lines which led to
the upbuilding of a distinct type of religious faith and
organization, whose power has been especially marked in Great
Britain and America, and has been increasingly spread throughout the
world.

Between Whitefield and John Wesley, in 1741, a separation occurred
on points of doctrine, Whitefield adhering to a rigid Calvinism,
while Wesley inclined to Arminianism, and thenceforth they followed
their several paths. Although Whitefield founded no sect, he exerted
a widespread influence by his presence and voice. Before their
separation both preachers had been in America, and the personality
and eloquence of Whitefield not only wrought a spell upon the
multitude, but even exercised a degree of fascination over such a
philosophical spirit as Franklin. Wesley's work in America was
deeper and more enduring, and is still a growing feature of the
country's religious development.

Nothing could be happier for the present purpose than the treatment
of this great religious movement, in its beginnings, as it is here
dealt with by the dispassionate historian of England during the
century in which the movement arose.

The Methodist movement was a purely religious one. All explanations
which ascribe it to the ambition of its leaders, or to merely
intellectual causes, are at variance with the facts of the case. The
term Methodist was a college nickname bestowed upon a small society of
students at Oxford who met to